UO Lore

Stratics Veteran

I've been thinking, with all of the events lately and the constant champ spawns and peerless that I've attended, what exactly is the lore behind most of these creatures? I've read the wiki for the old UO lore and I found that Rikktor is the god of the ophidians and Mephitis is the god of the terathans but what about these others? I mean, I've done countless Barracoon spawns but never really thought to who exactly Barracoon is and what is his history?

P.S. If anyone has seen the movie "Willard" then they would find Barracoon quite interesting.

Stratics Veteran

I've been thinking, with all of the events lately and the constant champ spawns and peerless that I've attended, what exactly is the lore behind most of these creatures? I've read the wiki for the old UO lore and I found that Rikktor is the god of the ophidians and Mephitis is the god of the terathans but what about these others? I mean, I've done countless Barracoon spawns but never really thought to who exactly Barracoon is and what is his history?

P.S. If anyone has seen the movie "Willard" then they would find Barracoon quite interesting.

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I've often wondered myself what the lore is for many things UO and went searching high and low for it. In the end, I never found anything but that proved to be a boon. Our guild began writing it's own background for creatures and place and cryptic never finished histories. We found that by making up our own stories and what not, we became even more immersed in the game than if EA just handed all this information to us.

Stratics Veteran

Dread Horn is a corrupted unicorn; Lady Melisande a corrupted Fey girl; Travesty a servant of Minax who took over an ancient ninja stronghold; etc.

You have to kind of look for this, however. Dread Horn's fiction, for example, is in the text of the Lorekeeper's quest. (The one that gives you the strongbox quest, the one that gets you into the Twisted Weald.)

In general, the Peerlesses all in some way reflect the influence of Mondain. Hence the name of the expansion: Mondain's Legacy. All of these things were brought about by the lingering corruption Mondain wrought upon the lands.

The Champs are a different story. I have never heard any fiction for the Champs, save for the general statement that the Champs come out because they are upset at seeing so many of their lesser creatures slaughtered.

In fact I have no idea how you even found what you did!

On LS, I invented some fiction, which some other players have also used.

The Champs are demonic manifestations. Though they always, for whatever reason, had a foothold in Ilshenar, their presence spread to other facets, and became even stronger in Ilshenar, after a Demonology Professor at the Lycaeum, named Soran Blackguard, translated an ancient demonic text known as The Book of Ashes.

The Book of Ashes is in two parts which appear to be entirely separate from one another. Part One is a nightmare-inducing, explicit description of demonic tortures, beginning with the humiliation, torture, and violation of the wife of Al Kalim, the Desert Paladin of Ilshenar. (For some D&D players, that name may be familiar; I stole the name from the fiction of an old campaign setting.)

Part Two tells us how to summon the Champions, tells us about power scrolls, and tells us how to summon the Harrower. Most champ spawn guilds can be assumed to have a copy of Part Two in their guild houses someplace. (I purposefully didn't explain Lord Oaks's role in this. Is he, like the other Champs, a demonic manifestation? Is he a prisoner of theirs of some kind, offered to us for the demons' amusement?)

There are also some appendices describing various demonic rituals, the purposes of which are mostly unknown. They have obscure names like, "The Ritual of Challenge," "The Ritual of Return," "The Ritual of Restoration," etc.

This is why we weren't able to do these things until Publish 16: We didn't know how. The Book of Ashes is basically very late RP fiction to explain Publish 16. I floated the notion that the demons purposefully let us find, and then translate, The Book of Ashes, because it amused them to watch us fighting one another over power, even if meant they had to spill a little of their own blood.

Soran Blackguard has been missing for a few years now, following a strange and little-discussed incident.

Feel free to incorporate this material into your own RP fiction for your own shards if you are so inclined.

Stratics Veteran

That's kool. I have yet to read that "Book of Ashes". Guess I'm headed to the Lyceaum to hunt it down. It would be nice if there was a lore database of some type for all of the creatures. I know stratics and uo.com have small snippits of info on the creatures but not the actual history.

Stratics Veteran

Ah, so that book isn't actually spawning in the game? I searched through all of the books at the Lyceaum to no avail. That is awesome lore though if it is player created. Puts sense into all of the senseless champ spawns that are fought over.

Ah, so that book isn't actually spawning in the game? I searched through all of the books at the Lyceaum to no avail. That is awesome lore though if it is player created. Puts sense into all of the senseless champ spawns that are fought over.

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I think we would all marvel at the acrobatics of Galen's player's mind.
Oustanding writer as well.

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